Andal and Jeva made it to a small town on the base of the mountain path leading to Mavoshidog. While they wanted to head out immediately, despite being tired, the horse was exhausted. They decided to sleep five hours before leaving in the early morning. They probably wouldn''t be fighting on horseback anyway, so the horse could rest then. It was easy enough to find a home where they were welcome to stay the night- the inhabitants were very appreciative that they were going to help fight the Haverdash.


    They woke several minutes early when a thunderous crash that was like lightning and something very heavy like an avalanche resounded off the White Ridge. Andal and Jeva jumped up from their sleep and were able to immediately run outside to see what had happened.


    They saw a plume of steam rising up from the ridge, but where it was coming from was obscured. They asked around, but everyone else knew just as much as them. Returning to the house,  they  ate a quick meal of dried biscuits. Then they gathered up their stuff to get going. They apologetically woke the horse, then started their ride out of town.


    They''d only traveled a couple blocks when they got distracted with someone who had ridden into town from the east side. He was attracting a crowd by giving news, and Jeva had overheard enough words for her to have Andal stop the horse.


    ""It struck the Haverdash! That''s where they were on the White Ridge, traversing toward Mavozshidog!" The man reported.


    "What was it?" One of the townsfolk asked.


    "It was like an avalanche that was charged with lightning! Perhaps an old God of the mountains was angry with them!"


    "It''s Javael!" A young lady yelled excitedly, "My cousins in Mavozshidog give a goat to Javael every year. He reigns over high places like mountains. He''s protecting them!"


    "I''m going to give a goat to him as a thank you then!" Said an older man, "I have relatives in Mavozshidog also!"


    The crowd was elated at the news, and all appreciative of Javael, but the messenger waved his arms to bring attention back to him, "That was the good news! There''s more!" When it looked like a decent number of people were listening he said, "There''s another attack force of Haverdash heading toward Velnaris. They should reach their target within two hours."


    Andal led the horse up to the messenger, "We were going to Mavozshidog to support the defenders. Based on what you''re saying, should we go to Velnaris?"


    Others wanted to keep talking to him, but he answered Andal, "That sounds right to me. I don''t see how the Haverdash attacking Mavozshidog could have survived that, and all the backup troops are there too. Velnaris is more vulnerable, but it''s your lives."


    "Thank you." Andal pulled away from the crowd and asked Jeva, "What do you think, Vilnaris?"


    "Yea, maybe two cities will be saved today! And honestly, Vilnaris is a lot nicer than Mavozshidog anyway. It''s too cold at that elevation."


    "My thoughts exactly, and we can probably beat the Haverdash to Vilnaris since it''s so much closer."


    *


    Their first impression of Vilnaris was of a ghost town.  Everyone in the outer city had been pulled inside a large ring of barricades built during Donfas''s expansion that had since been integrated into the city''s life. When they approached the west gates to the walls they opened automatically. Some children inside who had pushed open the door waved them in, then closed the door behind them.


    Andal leaned over and asked one of them, “Thanks for letting us in, do you know where the person in charge is?”


    The children all crowded around the person he’d asked and fought over who got to answer the question, though they were all saying the same thing.


    “Blue building by the pond near the east wall, got it. Thanks!”


    He told the horse to walk again, but Jeva turned in her seat and called back to the kids, “Oh, and do you know where the stables are?”


    They hurriedly yelled out directions, and it turned out that the stables were next to the blue building they were going to.


    “Thank you!” Jeva yelled back.


    “Good thinking.” Andal told her.


    “I know you’ve got a one track mind; you probably forgot I was here. All you can think about, sniffing the air like a bloodhound for some smelly wine, is how close the Haverdash are.”


    Andal was amused and repulsed by the weird depiction of him, “I was not! I wouldn’t be surprised if you volunteered to deliver messages between us and them though, just hours of attempted negotiations watching you run back and forth.”


    ‘Ah, courier joke. Didn’t land.” She made an exaggerated impression of Andal sniffing the air, then asked in an extra feminine voice, “What is it Andal, what do you smell?” Then in an even more feminine voice, “I smell Haverdash wine!”


    “Dang. I’m not even going to try to answer that one.”


    “You can still redeem yourself! Tell me, Andal, just what were you thinking about when I asked about the stable?”


    Andal pulled in his lips to signify that he wouldn’t speak. He thought it was perfectly reasonable that he had been thinking about the Haverdash, but he couldn’t let her know that, or she would have been proven right.


    “Come on, Andal, say it! What were you thinking?”


    Andal shook his head quickly, holding back a smile.


    “So I was right, wasn’t I?”


    “Oh look!” Andal said, “There’s the blue building, and here’s the pond! Looks like we need to get to business now!”Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    “Andaaaal!” Jeva yelled. “Answer me!”


    “Nope, busy now, sorry!”


    They left the horse in the stables, then went to the blue building. They didn’t have any money, but since they were joining in the defense of the city the man at the stables said not to worry about pay. Andal knocked on the door to the blue building, and seconds later it was answered by a gray-haired man fully clad in armor. He seemed confused at the sight of them, trying to reconcile the fact that they looked so young with how Andal was fully clad in armor of his own.


    “Can I help you two?”


    “We’re from Tubarai''s Military Academy of Magic and Magic Affiliates,” Andal told him. “We want to help.” Jeva smiled and waved.


    He held out his hand welcomingly, “Good to meet you. Go ahead and place yourself under the command of a captain, who should be easy to find at the barricade."


    Andal shook his hand, "We were wondering if there was any specific way you wanted to use us? We can counter the Haverdash gas, for instance. We''ve been preparing to fight the Haverdash this whole time."


    That drew his attention instantly, "You can? That does change things, come inside. We might want to include you in our discussion."


    He opened the door fully, and stepped aside for them to enter. There were two men and a woman, also armored, standing around a table with various miniatures on it.


    "Who are these two, Natal?" One of them asked.


    "They''re from the Tubarai Magic academy, they say they can counter the Haverdash gas. Since we were so worried about it, I thought it would be important to include them in the planning."


    "That''s huge for us!" Said the one with a thick beard, "How can you do that?"


    "I can take away our need to breathe for up to half an hour, so we can approach the source of it and destroy it."


    "That''s excellent," the woman said, "we can send out flank parties as a distraction as you destroy the source of the gas. They’re clay like clumps, we call them gas bombs.  Any other skills we should know about?"


    Jeva answered, "We''re both good at repelling arrows, and we both fight really well."


    Natal walked up to the table, "Both important traits. Let me show you what we have going on here," he leaned over the table. "These represent the Haverdash forces, which we estimate to be between 2-3 thousand. Our trained soldiers are about a thousand, but we''ve armed over four thousand more.  Normally I would love these numbers, since we''re the defenders, but not against the Haverdash."


    Andal asked, "So what do we think their plan to break the barricade is? How do they want to get in?"


    "Ladders and battering rams,” the bearded one answered, "They''ve got a couple rams with roofs set on wheels, and we can see hundreds of ladders. Their strategy should be clear: use the gas to clear us off the walls and then scale them, and they can move the battering rams in through the gas and break down the doors. If you can stop the gas then we have a good chance to catch them unprepared."


    A horn blew, and the four rushed to the door, "The Haverdash are starting the attack!" Natal told Andal and Jeva, "We''re counting on you to stop the gas, we''ll support you every way we can."


    Andal and Jeva ran out with them, and they all went to the top of the barricade walls. The strong easterly wind that had been blowing the past two days was totally gone, and the Haverdash had set up the origin points for the gas in the outer city.


    The Haverdash were mostly staying back behind them, but the two battering rams were being gradually rolled forward.


    Natal told them, "We''ll get flanking troops out there to distract them, can you go right now?"


    "Yes sir!" Jeva soluted, and promptly hopped off the wall. Andal made a circle of light below her, not unlike how he would make a shield, and then hopped down himself.


    Natal was disturbed at first by Jeva jumping off the wall, but seeing it work out, ran off to get the flanking attacks going.


    Andal made another circle several feet below them that they jumped to, then from it to the ground. The gas was approaching slowly but definitely, and they needed to destroy the source before that cloud reached the wall. They ran as best they could while staying out of the Haverdash line of sight.


    They ducked behind a house just one hundred feet from the impending cloud. Andal placed a hand on Jeva''s shoulder and took a deep breath, casting the spell to let them not have to breathe.


    A thin layer of glittering golden light formed over their faces like masks. Jeva asked, "So does this make it safe to breathe, or so that we can hold our breath?"


    "It might do a little of the former as a side effect, but it''s really the latter. Try not to breathe to be safe." Andal looked around the corner of the house at the cloud, which would wash over them in a few seconds. "Here we go… once it obscures us we can run freely."


    The cloud covered them. It was dark enough that they couldn''t see more than twenty feet in front of them, but the direction the gas floated in was clear enough that they knew exactly which direction to go in.


    Jeva began testing speaking without breathing in afterward, "Hello hello? I think we''re clear."


    Andal gave her a confused look, pointing at his lips then shrugging to ask why she was speaking.


    "You can talk and your breath gets replenished,” she explained, “you just have to be careful not to inhale."


    Andal turned to run, but Jeva grabbed his shoulder, "I should run ahead, you''re a lot slower than me."


    He looked hurt, "I''m wearing mail, you''re in wool!"


    "I know, just saying."


    Then she took off. Andal put his hands on his hips, forced to admit that there was no way he could match her pace for any amount of time when wearing armor. There had been three locations where the gas was coming from though, so if he went to the far left one he could at least do one of them.


    As Andal veered left he heard the sound of ringing metal and shouting. The flanking attacks must have started.


    Andal crossed through an alley to get to the next big street, but then stopped when he saw one of the battering rams being pushed along. He crouched down and counted the pairs of legs hidden below the penthouse. He counted eight pairs, then looked around to make sure there wasn''t anyone behind them, and there wasn''t. The strategy seemed to assume that only Haverdash could enter the gas, and the penthouse protected everyone with the battering ram from arrows, so it was safe to move in right away while those who had to rely on their shields when they rushed in were waiting for an opportune moment.


    Eight should be takable, especially if he took them by surprise. Andal crept over to the ram and waited for its rear to pass him. The Haverdash were lined up with four on each side of the structure pushing.


    Andal made a large and powerful sword of light aimed down the row of Haverdash, and it shot through their necks perfectly.


    The four on the other side were startled, and Andal couldn''t help but yell, "Whoo hoo!" In response to the perfect shot. They all looked back at him in realization and fierce anger.


    They grabbed spears off of hooks above them and scrambled at him, but Andal hit the three of them that were closest  with stunning rays like those Savador had.


    They fell down, and the one who wasn''t stunned behind them tripped over them. Andal made a circle of light above them and then made four swords pointing down above it. When they tried to get up they bumped the circle, and were caught unprepared. The circle then disappeared and the swords struck their targets in critical spots.


    Andal put his hands on his hips again, but this time to look proudly on his handiwork. He chuckled a bit, then laughed loudly. “Hahaha, yes! That’s how to do it! Things are different now!” He turned and dashed toward the source of the gas, more confident than ever.


    He reached the gas bomb. It was a roundish, purple clump on the ground with a slow burning flame on one side of it. The gas was being released from the clump where the fire was burning at high pressure.


    He wanted to remain concealed in the gas, but leaning down into the pressurized spray was physically difficult. He also wasn''t sure how to destroy it. He could cut the burning part off, but then they would just light it again.


    With nothing else to do, he picked up the gas bomb and ran. Jeva would probably be coming this way, so he went straight towards another gas bomb. Just then the two others bombs burst into flame, and an explosion of gas erupted from both of them. If the Haverdash weren''t coming already, they sure were now.


    He turned to run between two houses and smacked into Jeva. She looked at the clump, "You''re carrying it?!"


    "I didn''t know how to destroy it! Here, incinerate."


    She grabbed it and left a glowing-red imprint of her hand on it, "Timed to blow, let''s get out of here!" They turned to head back towards the barricade. They heard the Haverdash approaching, they couldn''t have been more than fifty feet away.


    Jeva threw the gas bomb at them and dropped to the ground, which Andal copied.


    The gas bomb burst into flames, and gas shot in every direction at intense pressures that knocked the running Haverdash off their feet.


    "They''ll outrun us, let''s go up!" Andal told Jeva. He made a circle of light four feet off the ground which they climbed on, then from there onto the roof of a nearby building. The Haverdash couldn''t see any better than they could in the thick gas, so they were able to get up and away without being hindered. They made another circle four feet up from the roof, then another even higher once they''d climbed on that. They walked from circle to circle thirty feet above the ground back to the barricade, unhindered by those below.


    The gas, which wasn''t being sent toward the barricade anymore, was settling. It wasn''t much heavier than the air, but it was only halfway up the barricade and wasn''t going to get any higher. Andal and Jeva high-fived, having successfully stopped the gas from running over the city.